Spears & Munsil Blue Ray Calibration Disc

Spears & Munsil Blue Ray Calibration Disc

ITEM: BDSM1R

The Spears & Munsil High Definition Benchmark Blu-ray Edition is now available to purchase from RAM Electronics.

Features:

 Calibration patterns for all major display controls
 Evaluation patterns for measuring display and player quality
 Clips to test deinterlacing performance
 Samples of different video and audio codecs
 All patterns created at 1080p in native color space using proprietary software

Stacey Spears and Don Munsil, who created the highly-regarded DVD Player Benchmark™ and Progressive Scan Shootout at Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity®, have applied all their technical wizardry to this Blu-ray test and evaluation disc. "The test patterns on this disc represent the current state-of-the-art. They are cleaner and more accurate than the test patterns found on previous discs. There are a lot of subtle details that go into making them as mathematically perfect as possible, especially to ensure that they retain all their precision after lossy encoding. We have built proprietary tools to generate patterns and a custom encoder that preserves much more detail. Even ordinary patterns like color bars have unique traits that make them cleaner." - Stacey Spears, co-creator.

Reviews:
"...this disc is an excellent calibration tool and no home theater will be complete without it.", James Segars - High Def Disc News

"...the pinnacle of setup and evaluation discs... If you have a Blu-ray player, you should have this in your library.", Kris Deering - Home Theater Magazine

"The most user friendly and accurate 1080p calibration disc that we have used to date. Very highly recommended.", Neil Underwood - CANADA HiFi

"The Spears and Munsil Benchmark disc is a very useful, easily understood, and affordable tool that anyone can use to evaluate the video performance of their home theater without the need of a high-priced technician.", Robert Silva - About.com

FAQ:
Q - "Can I use this disc with a display that isn't 1920x1080 resolution?"

A - Yes. While almost all of the patterns and sequences on the disc are created at full 1920x1080 resolution, you can do all of the calibration steps with any display, including 720p. Most of the patterns will be effectively unchanged. Some of the patterns may look slightly different than they would on a native 1080p display. For example, the highest-frequency bursts in the luma bursts pattern will turn gray, which is normal. You can still use the bursts pattern to compare different modes of your player or display and see which is producing the highest available resolution with the least distortion.
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Q - "Does this disc include a blue filter?"
A - Yes. For more information on the blue filter please read our article on using the calibration filter.

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Q - "Why do the dynamic range bars blink?"
A - The bars on the dynamic range high and dynamic range low patterns blink to make it easier to see the bars. As you get closer to the point of clipping, the bars are more difficult to see.